Welcome to Night Vale Quiz: Match Quotes with Episodes

€�Night Vale… Night Vale. I tried to tell you about this day. I was very clear. Tamika was very clear. We could have done something, Night Vale, but we chose not to. Not one citizen outside of Tamika and her band of brilliant, brave, children stood up to tyranny today! We all chose to stand down, and hope change would be won for us, and not by us! By someone else, we believed. A hero, we believed.”

€�It’s extraordinary to think that she’ll be a teenager some day, getting her driver’s permit, then her license, then her crossbow - going through all of these phases we all pass through. It’s like there’s a future attached to her already. Inside Sabina, there’s a baby, and seated inside the baby there’s the toddler. And within her are the blueprints for the girl. And soon, she’ll be out here learning to play the sitar and considering vegetarianism, then voting and buying lottery tickets.”

€�If something that is clearly not water and smells like a tasty breakfast food is hissing out of your faucets and causing you to stand on your chair like there’s a mouse in the room even though there’s really no escape from what very well may be a poisonous gas of some sort, and honestly you can’t fathom why you jumped onto this chair at all but it somehow makes you feel better, press 5.”

€�That flickering movement is everywhere now. Especially looking in this mirror. I see the flickering movement, and I know. I know it. I think the radio station is fun. I think the radio station is hidden. I think the radio station is like a dark planet lit by no sun. I think, therefore I soon won’t be.”

€�Lights. Seen in the sky above the Arby’s. Not the glowing sign of Arby’s. Something higher, and beyond that. We know the difference. We’ve caught on to their game. We understand the ‘lights above Arby’s’ game. Invaders from another world. Ladies and gentlemen, the future is here, and it’s about a hundred feet above the Arby’s.”

€�Listen, I love my wife, and she loves her brother. And we both love our daughter, and my…brother-in-law? Half-brother? Double-brother? Hmm... Well, he loves his niece. So that counts for a lot. That counts for most of it. I don’t hate him the way he hates me. How could I? I understand him. He hates me because he doesn’t understand me at all. Cannot see the dotted lines. He cannot see the arrows.”

€�There is so much blood, it is seeping into my shoes! There are – oh, masters of us all, no! – teeth scattered across the floor. The window into the control booth is shattered and there is a swath of skin and a fistful of long clumping hair hanging from a sharp glass point! I do not know if this is even Night Vale.”

€�...it’s nice to have a station pet. Wish it wasn’t trapped in a hovering prison in the men’s bathroom, but listen: no pet is perfect. It becomes perfect when you learn to accept it for what it is.”

€�I do not know what the rumbling is. I do not know why some doors work and others do not. I do not know why my phone never loses battery power and can heal itself. I do not know how long it will take me to pursue this knowledge. But I do know two things.” “What is that?” “I love you.” “I love you, too. What’s the other thing?” “You just said it.”

€�I see only the intruder’s shadow, in that deep purple glow. It is– it is the man from the lighthouse! He is holding something! The dangerous, dangerous angel is with him! The man is holding something! He is holding– He is holding a cat.”

€�’You wanted to witness. So witness! I am the good boy, and I rule over the dark, wet caverns of Hell!’ He cocked his little beagle head. He stood, so much taller than I thought a dog could stand. His breath was thick and wet and labored. ‘I want nothing, Cecil! Nothing at all! And I will have it!’”

€�Mayor Cardinal shouted, ‘No!’ but only after what was done, was done. The ‘no’ was not a command but a regret. She opened her mouth. She closed her mouth. She didn’t know what to say. She said nothing about situational irony. She said nothing about unnecessary tragedy. She said nothing more about anything. Hadassah screamed in impotent rage and despair. She clawed over and over at the bars of the cage, powerful electric shocks ran through her, but she felt none of them. She clawed and clawed, howling with a voice even she did not recognize.”

€�She leaned in, insects scuttling across her long, brown snout. ‘I am the destroyer. They take our buildings. They put them in crates. Their interests are furthered. I am the destroyer.’ Around me, barely visible in the dark train car was a sparse scattering of men dressed from a bygone era, holding wooden crates. They were sitting upright, twisted around, and silently watching me.”

€�Before everything, before even humans, there were stories. A creature at a fire conjuring a world with nothing but its voice and a listener’s imagination. And now, me, and thousands like me, in little booths and rooms and mics and screens all over the world, doing the same for a family of listeners, connected as all families are, primarily by the stories we tell each other. And after, after fire, and death, or whatever happens next, after the wiping clean or the gradual decay, after the after, when there are only a few creatures left, there will be one at a fire, telling a story to what family it has left. It was the first thing, and it will be the last.”

€�Well, I mean honestly I’ve never really looked at any of these magazines before. I mean, Playboy was for other boys and girls. Uh, interesting. Listeners, did you know that Playboy magazine has a bunch of pictures of women across various careers with in-depth profiles on their lives? I did not know this. Yeah there’s a whole pictorial on this issue of all the women who have ever played James Bond, in full costumes! Oh my god, look at these smart tuxes and pistols and one of them’s on a motorcycle!”

€�A woman ran at our car, screaming, a few of the shadow people chasing her, but before I could even touch the brake, she must have changed her mind because she had already turned into a shadow person herself. It’s like, ugh, run from the shadow people or become one. Make up your mind, lady!”

€�Of course I say Cecil singular as though there were one of anything. But as we now know, there is not one of anything. There’s a Cecil who would not listen. There’s a Cecil who listened, but could not comprehend. There’s a Cecil who did his utmost but who failed. There’s a Cecil who was gone long before I came. There is Cecil and Cecil and Cecil and Cecil and then there is me, trying to explain to him over and over about the choice I made. But all that ever comes out is the truth.”

€�Love, it’s a hunch at first and then later it’s a series of decisions, a lifetime of decisions. That’s love. And, I didn’t, I didn’t know how to express that and so I just said: ‘I’m glad I decided to call you.’ And now, um, tonight, I say I’m glad again, for this decision and, all the decisions that will come every day after. Which is to say, scientifically speaking of course, speaking from the point of view of mere facts and logic and you know, what with the science and all… I just thought that it was time for us to make a life together.”

€�Charles is 41 years old and wants to settle down, become a teacher, and raise a family. Charles is a welcome addition to Desert Bluffs. He’s someone I’d really love to keep my eyes on. So to speak.”

€�Listen, Telly, the haircut was great. I loved it! So maybe Cecil didn’t like it. Maybe no one else in the entire universe liked it, I don’t know, I don’t care! Because I loved it. And I got it for me. You have nothing to be ashamed of, you never did! Come back to us. Come back to us and restart your life. You were one of us all this time!”

€�When we talk about freedom, we restrict ourselves to so few images. Images of freedom should be as liberating as the feeling itself! I want to talk about freedom as a drum set being thrown down a hill, as opening a book one night, and water gushing from the pages until my life is a lake and I swim away. Or as a bird in flight! With all the dependence on physics, and exhaustion, and food supply, and merciless gravity that the actuality implies. I just don’t want to talk about freedom in terms of numbers. Anything but that! I'm so tired of numbers! I’m so tired.”

€�I had arranged a small ceremony to mark this occasion, and invited Carlos to attend. However, it looks like he will be…delayed. But I am not worried. I am not upset. I know that Carlos will be here for the ceremony. I have the trophy here in my hand. I am holding the trophy and I am not upset. Carlos will be here. He will. I am holding the trophy!”

€�I wish things could have gone differently, obviously. That is, obviously, what I wish. But they didn’t. What is the use of nostalgia for what didn’t happen when we have to live with what did?” .... “A counterpart that never was? A friend that I never had? A life that was never lived. Could Night Vale and Desert Bluffs have been sister towns? Was there a moment when that possibility drifted like breath into frozen air until it wisped away into the cold truth of what happened?”

€�There are times, as humans, it feels like we are given more responsibility than we can handle. It feels as though the world is resting on our backs. And any decision we make could have implications for everyone else in the entire world. But of course, that’s not really the case. The truth is, while we might be able to ruin our own lives, or even a whole bunch of people’s lives, there are few who are ever put in the position where they can make even a ripple in the life of everyone on Earth. But this was exactly the situation Frances and Nazr found themselves in.”

€�Let me describe to you the shape of Cecil Palmer. He’s a line of leafless mesquite trees, he is a glass factory, he is a golf ball sized hail, he has a voice like distant highway traffic. He loves coffee and handshakes, he wears tight clothing, and has never once worked with modeling clay. He covers mirrors with cloth and has an irrational fear of glowing lights beneath locked doors and dark hallways. You cannot know any of this, because Cecil is my vision, not yours. He is real all the same. He is to be my replacement when I retire. But he does not exist, so I can never retire. I am your permanent host.”